History herstory ourstory
by rebeccacherub
Summary: Character-study looking into Rip Hunter and his angst. My version of season 3 (haven't watched it yet). Involves triggering content so read with caution. What would happen if the team decided to save the future instead of the past?
1. Chapter 1

1.

Deep inside, there is a warrior inside Rip Hunter's heart. He borrowed the jumpship and took his leave, feeling a strange weariness creep up in his bones. He felt so cold, shivering shivering shivering, remembering the things he's done, brainwashed or not. He found a niche in 2017 Star City. Even though he had been a time master for decades, travelling everywhere staying under thirty years old biologically, Rip still didn't know who he was.

The man who devoted his life to protect history, the man who travelled alone and the man who assembled a team, here he is in the city of the flash and green arrow. Supergirl and Superman and Batman and their super friends weren't that far away. Either way, Rip had gone through a lot of trauma and sometimes, he hated himself. Defeating an ex-assassin, almost killing her, Gideon saved him from becoming a murderer. _It wasn't you,_ his conscience told him. His heart told him.

Somehow, he knew that he had to take a firm hold of the man he was long before he became a time traveler. Somehow. His memories are this: pain pain pain and so much suffering and blood and blood and blood. The only thing that made sense was to take his own blood and suffer the way doctor mid-nite did. The way Sara did when he was choking her. A strong, tough girl who had been training in martial arts for years, an elf or a faerie.

Rip figured that by now he wasn't human. He punched a brick, just to hurt himself, and the brick wall shattered all around him. It crumbled into an redolent red dust. Mud, clay, becoming what it started as. 'I was clay,' Rip thought. 'God's clay.' His knuckles burned as they bleed, as the wall fell apart and Rip collapsed in his own agony. _Who am I?_ It didn't matter. He grabbed onto his chest and thought about his red red red heart beating thumping wanting to fight back, wanting to go back to the Waverider because it was the only life he ever knew.

But he couldn't, at least not yet. It's not that he didn't feel welcome there: he figured that they were better off without them. _You saved them. You gave them purpose. Some cause to stand up for._ **Was that Gideon? Or God?** He never thought about God before. But now his skin was burning, bleeding, and before this he never felt so alive, his whole body electrocuted burning water coursing through his veins.

So he ran. He ran and knew he had to find a temporary place to stay, find some sort of brand new purpose for himself. He closed his eyes and covered his injured fist with his other hands. Too much power, too much risk. He ran and he thought of his wife and son and he thought of Savage and the evil speedster and he thought about how much he loved Sara and felt wonder for the way Amaya channeled animal powers. What you don't know, can hurt you. Talk to the animals, Amaya will say. They attack because they are afraid. They attack because they are wild and you are wild too and that wildness is what makes you so beautiful, what makes you a hero.

He accessed his safety bank and bought a small cottage near Star City. He thought about protecting people, about becoming a super hero. He thought about writing books about history and he thought about making advanced technology like Ray did…does. They aren't dead. They are protecting time without him, and that stung. Then he reminded himself that it was his own choice, his own free will. He applied for a passport and applied for jobs as a history professor near Star city.

Every day he thought about the bricks crumbling in his hands. Running faster than cars, though not as fast as Barry Allen. He thought about it all the time. How alive he felt when the cuts on his thumbs were stinging.

So he tried it. He bought double-edged razor blades and dug it into his arm and yanked it. He expected something to happen…like there's an aberration when a time traveler settles in the past and cuts himself instead of fighting to save the world. Fighting against time twisters and fighting in solidarity with his lost wife and children. And the blood and pain took all of that away. He was numb. He was awake and so so so alive and he knew that he wanted to do it again.

He fought himself. He wanted to be the man recruited by the time masters. He thought about God and what God wanted him to do. _Find purpose. Get up._ He took a sip of whiskey and almost puked and then took another sip and another, drowning in his sorrow.

Sometimes help is harm, and harm is help. Sometimes when you lose someone, you never stop grieving. Sometimes you lose yourself, but Rip promised himself that he wouldn't lose grip of the person he started out as. He wouldn't let go. He thought about the monster that Vandal Savage was and he wondered if he was, after all, just like him. And he dismissed the thought and cut himself. He felt better, wise, sorry, but most of all, okay. He felt okay.

He found a job. He was paid enough. He lectured college students about medieval England and the revolutionary war and told his students all the secrets he found out during his vocation as a time traveler. And he missed Sara, who pushed herself too hard in her training, and even Mick and Ray and Amaya. After what he did to them, how could they want him back?

But Rip sensed they did. They wanted him to be Captain Rip Hunter again. Gideon wanted Rip to come back. But Rip wasn't ready. He kept a journal and sometimes he wrote with his own blood. Not often. He didn't need it often. His memories burned him, seared him quite enough. He felt a strange sort of nostalgia for something he couldn't quite put his fingers on. _It doesn't matter_ , Rip told himself. But it did. It hurt and burned and even when he wasn't cutting himself he bleed bleed bleed in his heart in his soul.

His students looked up to him. And he to them. He spent time with Barry and Oliver and they made him a super-suit: a suit that was bullet-proof and knife-proof and a mask and a hood. Here, in Star City, he can be Rip Hunter again. Different vocation, same purpose. And Rip found he enjoyed running through the city trying to achieve superspeed. He chased the cars and practice sparring with Oliver. They told him about Bruce and Kara and Clark and Lana and he was alive alive alive. Another league of its own: the justice league.

The suit was comfortable and had black leather over the bullet-proof material. Maybe, he wasn't meant to be a time traveler after all. And he remembered all of his walls crumbling down. Pain pain pain. The first time he interceded between a murderer rapist and a lady with long red hair he felt empowered and brave. Bravery isn't a lack of fear: it's going into a battle with your fear and ignoring it. Powering up, feeling the energy in his body in his skin all over the place.

"You're safe now," Rip Hunter whispered. He couldn't help but wonder about Sara Lance. _Train hard_ , he heard with Sara's voice. He couldn't betray his wife. He loved Sara, but his wife was…is…his soulmate. That would never change. His feelings, he could battle those things. He cut himself when he got home, after peeling off his super-suit, his second skin. He felt super numb and happy and peaceful all at the same time. And his fear of being stabbed washed away. _I am okay_ , he said to himself. And maybe it wasn't a bad idea to think about Sara too. Let her into his heart. He couldn't tear his heart away from them, his team, and he knew they would be looking for him.

 _You're safe now,_ Gideon whispered. _You're not evil. It wasn't you. You didn't kill anyone, not on purpose._ But he remembered it, and sometimes, he wanted to die and find his wife and son. Like Rip, they were strong. He went to his job and he told his college age students how important to live – re-live – remember – history. Herstory. Yourstory. Who you used to be, and who you could become.

And then he would get home and cut his arm and hop into his jumpship and sets off for year 3017. The millennia that he was from. The war, the dystopian government, it is all gone. His team succeeded, though they failed to save Rip's family. How could this alternate universe be home? He didn't live on Earth. He lived in the vanishing point, having sworn an oath to protect history, to protect the future, to protect people. There was crime, of course, and advanced technology. But a great thing changed: Vandal Savage was gone, and the true definition of anarchism allowed every citizen to be free. No power in human hands, another immortal Man – or, God, per say – had come back. The thing he was told was called the Second Coming.

A friend? Rip knew that because of time travel that he himself was immortal. Is immortal. But it is Jesus that gave him his immortality. _Yes,_ Gideon said. _A friend._ He thought of Laura Story's song. God will be God, and Rip is free to be the person he's meant to be.

When Rip is ready to stop cutting himself, he will with no help at all. He had a strong sense of self deep inside of him, yet he couldn't forget the Rip he was when he was in the cell on the Waverider curled up in a ball, in fetal position. He could not forget the enemy that he became, and now, the hero he does not have to be.

 _Let God_ , Rip's intuition whispers. _Let go and let God._ He jumped back to 2017 and found Jesus in his heart, smiling at him. _I want you to be happy_ , Jesus says. And Rip finds a love for this God, the only God, that he never had before. A love for Jesus and His Father Yahweh. And the Holy Spirit, surrounding Rip's apartment.

It's 2 a.m. and Rip doesn't care if he lives or dies. He goes outside and wanders around, his keys in his pocket. He finds a park with a grassy field and lays down kicking screaming at the constellations. He smokes ganja instead of drowning in liquor and he talks to the stars. He talks to the Great Man above the stars. He takes a hit and closes his eyes and lets himself collapse against a woody tree. He finds the heart inside the tree as the leaves sway back and forth and he sings the song he sang to his son when he was a screaming one year old.

 _They're alive. Where are they?_ That was all Rip could think about, so he gazed at the black but shiny sky and burns himself with his lighter and he screams. So much pain, and not all of it is physical. He closes his eyes and visualizes his wife and sun and Sara and a Man that he imagines Jesus probably looks like. _You are safe. You are safe._

He stares at his arm and finally cries. He cries because he misses the time ship that was his only home and he cries because his arm itches and he cries because his family is lost and he cries because he is betraying himself by loving Sara Lance too much, even Mick, and Ray and Amaya and that maybe leaving was the worst mistake he could ever make.

He doesn't mind his job, or 2017, or Star City. He doesn't mind patrolling the city in the dark at night, smoking weed and staring out to space. His time ship went there. _His_ time ship, not Sara's, though he unofficially gave it to her. He gave the Waverider to Sara and to Jax and to Martin Stein and Lilly if she ever wanted that life and Amaya who he barely knows and Ray and Steel. He didn't even realize that he started something more than a team: he found a new family. And he missed it so much that it was like he was tugging his heart out of his chest.

And in the morning he drove to work and he missed England too and he even missed all of his many enemies. He missed fixing abberations and he missed everything even new things self harm and speeding through the night smoking herb teaching molding young minds maybe even saving the world in the way only a misfit could. And he finds an identity in that: misfit, loner, legend. That will never go away. _My soul is the mirror of your own. My eyes are your eyes and we spin and spin and spin and who are you that I forget about my dead wife when I think about you?_ He thinks this over and over again and he closes his eyes and remembers being Phil dropping acid and eating mushrooms and filming all of the ideas that he had forgotten about.

And he has some nostalgia for forgetting. It would be so easy, so painless. But he is here for something more than that. He was put here to be a hero, a vigilante, and now he knows that he can't save time itself. Only Yahweh and Jesus can do that. And learning that is freeing if you let it. Let him in. Let him in. He's knocking on the door wanting to open a million doors for him. A million millenias. A million centuries and settling down back in 3017 if he wanted to, but he doesn't.

He feels free free free ready to fight back fight his weary pain and let love and peace replace it. And he secretly hopes his team is looking for him, trying to find him, because he is not the sort of man to settle down. But feeling pain when everybody is hurting is wise and it is glorious sadness and Rip wants to feel more so he slashes his own skin and watches his blood run down his pale, now scar-scattered arm and he smiles. And now he knows he is ready. Ready for an adventure and ready to face the man that he has become. And he knows he can no longer live this life as a loner.

Not anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

The ocean is ripping at Rip's heart. The waves crash and fall and white foam growls as Rip sits in the sand on the beach gazing at the pink and purple horizon. He punches the sand and wants to cry more than ever. _Real men cry_ , Rip thinks. Utterly alone. He sips his strawberry smoothie and thinks about how meaningless his life feels right now. _Look_ _for me_ , his heart screams. He is locked in this body, this mountain weight, with his tan hair and his faerie glare. Stare at the sun. Everyone should be kissed by the sun. _The Son_ , a voice calls out from the very edge of the Sea.

And Rip is getting up and running and running and he is wondering how to get back and why did he ever choose to leave? He knows now that everything happens for a reason and he has so many lessons to impart to his history students.

 _Listen, Rip. Listen to the tugging of hear heartstrings like a cello playing dark low beautiful notes, a low roar whispering run run run. The wind brushing his hair stinging his heart. Listen, Rip. Listen for your wife, she's alive. Listen to me and dare to go in that water, that shark-infested water. Listen: you are strong you are a man with a purpose listen listen carefully I hear you._

Is that Sara? Is that Miranda? Is that his son? Rip gets up and takes off his sandals and runs towards the place in-between the crashing waves and the sand. He lets his legs slow down and walks, occasionally bending down to pick up seashells. In all his eternity, he has never done this before: this thing that all people need to do. _Read the vast ocean, Rip. Listen to the waves crash and watch the white foam._ He runs fast fast enough to maybe find the Waverider. But he never does. It was his silly mistake.

Meanwhile, Sara is the temporary Captain of the Waverider. The team of legends – heroes, if you want to call us that – is still saving history, herstory, yourstory. They all miss Rip, knowing there is something tugging on his heart, some trouble he is in and why would he leave everything that ever meant something to him behind?

Sara trains in the training room on the ship, punching and kicking a wooden punching bag Kung Fu students use to strengthen their muscles and bones. She kicks the regular black punching bag too. _Train hard, be patient, seek strength._ She is no lon ger an assassin and she misses the man who saved her from herself. She has hatred for her enemy Ras-Algul but genuine love for a man she met at the league of shadows: Bruce Wayne. Like Rip, he has a mind that is both dark and light. Both men grieve over a family lost. Bruce, his parents; Rip, his wife and son. Both, potential heroes. Sara sees only the light in them.

Mick yells at Sara, telling her that dinner is ready.

"Are we going to look for him?" Sara asks. The elephant in the room is no longer invisible. It is giant and grey and silver, staring at them.

"He chose to leave, Sara," Ray says and Sara closes her eyes and wishes prays something that Rip is going to change his mind and seek them.

"We have to look for him," Sara said. Because saving people is more important than saving history. Herstory. Yourstory. Ourstory. Let history dangle from a thin strand let the silver pixie dust wake everybody up. Like Rip's knuckles, Sara's knuckles are bloodied from her training. Pushing herself too hard because she wants to be strong, super-strong, so she can save people the way she couldn't save Laurel.

And she thinks she understands Rip. She lost her family. But she didn't let go of the music that plays deep inside of her. Plumb, exhale. It's okay to not be okay. Breathe. In. Out. Then let go. It's important to suffer for a while, to find patience and lovingkindness. Breathe. In. Out. And then be.

There is no place to go right now. No one to be. Nothing to do. And it frees Sara to follow her heart. "Gideon, where is Rip?" Sara asks out of desperation.

"He asked me not to tell you," Gideon says. "Respect him." Sara steps backwards. She wants to save him. She senses that something wrong. Time can go to hell. If you don't have your makeshift family, how can anything else matter? Not all ring-bearers are destined to be alone.

So Sara goes to the kitchen and eats and then they plot a course to the future, just to dare, just to peak, take a glimpse of what becomes of the world.

"Gideon, take us to year 4,000 a.d.," Sara says.

"Yes, Captain Lance," Gideon says. Sara smiles a weary, tired smile. She remembers her training and grabs the air, grabs her strength, and straps herself in her chair. The rest of the team – except for Rip; he's not there – strap themselves in too. They wouldn't stay long, Sara promised Gideon. Sara realized she has no idea where and when was Rip's home before he became a time "master". Her heart is beating so fast and she is dizzy blacking out waking up to the ship landing slowly in England year 4,000 a.d.

"Some people have to stay behind to protect the ship," Sara says.

Amaya volunteers, having the power of the animals. She connects with them, understands with them, and doesn't fear them.

Everyone else abandons the ship, sticking together and walking around. There are tall buildings and shadowy roads and where is all the grass and trees and who is in charge? The trees are hiding dancing swaying and Sara, like Rip, never learned to dance, unless you count fighting. Her body is a weapon, her fight is a dance. Her martial arts once was to kill and now it is a brilliant moon-lit dance to save and to bring peace. To be stronger than she ever dared to be.

The grass dances as the sun sets. There is Grace in Sara's limbs and her bones are aching a still, silent ache that nothing, not even seeing Laurel again, can take away. It was there before she lost her sister, and long before she met Rip Hunter.

We all have this ache, this empty hole inside of us. It exists so we will seek God. And Sara Lance dares to hope that Rip will change his mind and seek them. Seek her, seek Miranda, seek a way out of this pain for all of them. Because saving others, saving time, isn't enough. You have to take the time to save yourself first.

Rip takes the jumpship back to 2017 and gets back to his job as a history professor. He sees light in his students' eyes, a glimmer of hope, a desire to learn. And Rip wants to shield them from the nightmares and monsters that hide in the glitches of time, the aberrations written in stone, written in a new history that needs to be restored.

First, Rip needs to restore himself, to the man who was not a weary traveler who lost Miranda and Jonas. The light, the humor, in his son's eyes. The way he would laugh and tell his teacher that his daddy is a time traveler, the way he would play with leggos and go in to stories. He missed the way Miranda's silky dark hair would caress Rip's skin and the way her eyes told a million songs, a million poems, and that there is no going back, no going back to when they were alive because then there would be timequakes. Time would fold in on itself and everything as Rip knew it would be destroyed.

Sometimes Rip is depressed, self-loathing, weary. He finds a surprising passion in teaching his college students the lessons he learned from his centuries of time travel. As much as he loves time travel, he feels just…tired. Not physically as much as emotionally. He is a big teal ocean wave, he is a mountain, he is an island. He blends in; he is a wallflower.

He discusses how Hitler started fascism and how people with no power who fight evil anyways are the real super-heroes. He discusses that with every war that comes there is both good and evil at stake. He teaches the terror of September 11, an experience far in the past. And he dares his students to not only examine history, but to examine the future as well. Dare to glimpse into your future.

And then the wanderlust comes back. It's a dance Rip was born with: a desire to travel, to run, to escape solitary confinement of a boring life. It's a fight deep inside Rip's blood to resist settling down. That isn't the kind of person Rip is. Rip is a time traveler. He wants to go to his time period, the 31st century, and beyond. See if there is a glimmer of hope in 4,000 and 5,000 and he has to go now now now incase he dies before he has a chance to see it. Not likely as he knows he is immortal, but he is a weary man fighting not to be suicidal.

Listen: self-harm has nothing to do with suicide. It's the opposite. It's a way of preventing and ignoring suicidal thoughts and trying to make yourself better. It's like putting one foot in the ocean and digging your toes into the muddy sand. Jesus, let me see. Jesus, let me fly and dance and let me see. Let me see hope, because I seem to have lost all of it.

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Amaya is from the past just like Rip is from the future. She is an animal warrior, a soft brown skinned warrior. Being soft is not a weakness: to be gentle is to be strong. She thinks fondly of becoming a seal and jumping into raging white water to save Steel. She remembers that night naked in the tent with him. She remembers courting, and she remembers we can do this chill. But Amaya wants a soulmate, someone that will love her for her soul and personality and not just her lithe shifting body.

She is screaming. She wakes up sweating her covers twisted. She puts one hand on her head and notices bubbles of sweat falling down her face, like sweet bitter tears, like rain falling and crashing and boom what was that dream? It doesn't matter, not right now anyways.

Amaya barely knows Rip – neither does Steel – but she senses the team cares about him and she wants to reach out to him and tell him that he is not a monster. Sara and Kendra and Amaya all know what it's like to feel like an evil monster at times. Sara, the ex-assassin, dancing the dance of swords that way and this way and kicking and flipping. Amaya watches secretly as Amaya trains, punching and kicking and working on her backflip kicks. Amaya watches as Sara Lance's strong mind wins over her body as she forces ten more pushups five more twenty more. Ten pullups, break, ten more. Sit-ups, V-ups, the gymnast she was before league of shadows recruited her.

Sara and Kendra spar and Amaya sits there and watches, her super-strength and flight and super-speed all there unfolding but she lets go of it and watches. Train hard. Train until you're bleeding and crying and sweating too much and out of breath and ready to collapse. Then drink water and start over. Back handspring. Two hundred roundhouse kicks. Five hundred side-kicks. More V-ups. Then remember to nourish your body: two protein bars, orange juice, a water bottle.

Amaya drinks coffee and then sneaks into the training room. Sara and Kendra are done and it's Amaya's turn: she is gentle with her kicks and punches and then she uses her super-strength to rip through the punching bag. She closes her eyes and holds her heart with her left hand. She lets tears fall. She does push-ups and sit-ups and she remembers that when you are training be gentle with yourself and whatever you did in the past, it doesn't matter…forgive yourself. Amaya wants to tell Rip this: you are not the animal that roars inside your soul. You are a person.

Then they eat and they time jump to 2017 Star City because their intuition tells them that Rip is setting up base there. Amaya closes her eyes and silently prays for direction, for the path to Rip, a man who does not want to be found. But he is hurting, Amaya is an empath and she senses Rip's energy. He is tired and hurting and his eyes are filled with stardust pixiedust and there are more reasons to travel than to save history and to save lives: Rip travels just because he wants to see the world, see history unfold and see the future and the past and participate in it.

Before he was a time traveler, he was a historian like Steel. He paid careful attention to glimpses that he found that showed a weariness that perhaps he was born with. He senses that his ex-team is near and a part of him is happy _: go back, don't forget who you are again._ When you lose yourself, your mind is pliable, and darkness is always there haunting him. But beyond the dark moonlit night, there is a sun filled with stardust exploding, and Rip tears his heart out of his body and smashes it and puts it back inside of his body. The shell. You must keep the shell. He closes his eyes and tries not to cry so he cuts himself and lets his blood be his silent tears. Keep the shell, decorate it, do push-ups, become a stronger man.

 _Go back, remember who you are. You are not a murderer._

 _Or go to the 31_ _st_ _century. Or find your team. Not ex-team. A family of misfits who love him. Or kill yourself. Find Miranda and Jonas. But that isn't right. Wait. Be patient. Go back._

And Rip takes out his compass and opens it, looking at a picture of Miranda and Jonas. He smiles and tears roll down his cheek, and he finally lets himself grieve. He senses that the legends are close. They would not leave him alone to the solitude he sought for so long. But he missed Gideon even though it was never real. He misses Sara most of all, and then he feels like he is betraying himself: wait for Miranda. She's still Rip's soulmate.

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Sara closes her eyes and tries to focus on the strawberries she puts in her mouth. She chews slowly and thinks about how much she wants to scream and fight. She thinks about Laurel and she wants to go back and get between Damian Darhk and her sister. Stop the murder from happening. But Sara knows she can't do that. There are rules, and they are there for a reason. To guard time, to save history, even though sometimes there is this deep ache; this low roar. A bull screaming as a lone man fights it. A dragon soaring through the sky and a rising phoenix, not colorful but its feathers filled with shades of brown and gold and yellow. Sara's mind is filled with this. She lost a sister, a friend, so now she can't bear to lose Rip too. Whatever problems he's facing, Sara guesses she can understand. Been there, done that. Whatever it is.

Sometimes you start to black out and you just have to hold onto the air. The waverider lands somewhere in Star City in 2017 and they get off the ship. They find STAR labs and talk with Oliver Queen and Barry Allen. They say they don't know where Rip went, that he hadn't reached out to them. "What would a time traveler do for a living?" Jax asks. "History," he says, answering his own question. Perhaps like Steel [I forget his real name], Rip became a historian. A history teacher. Listen to your intuition, and it will guide you towards your lost friends.

They have to stay there. Fixing aberrations can wait; helping friends is more important. Sara closes her eyes and thinks about her battle scars. She was a trained assassin, a fifth degree black belt in kung fu, but everybody loses sometimes. No matter how strong you are nor how hard you train, you must lose to truly understand the heart of mankind. You must become vulnerable and different and dare to dive beyond into the abyss and let it look into you.

So they wait. And wait.

 _When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left. Mathew 12:43-45_

The team stops at a book store just for the sake of relaxing. They hadn't done that for a while. They buy cheesecake and coffee at Borders and start to sit and talk. They laugh and cry and browse the stacks for books on history. Sara blacks out and starts screaming and wakes up to hearing herself screaming and rocking back and forth. When you train hard, remember to train your mind, heart, soul and spirit too. Both internal and external martial arts are important. Without moving meditation, you won't be calm when it comes to fighting a foe.

 _I will wait for you. Do not be afraid._

Amaya finds a Bible and decides she wants to understand. "Looking for God?" Sara asks Amaya and Amaya almost jumps out of her skin. She shrugs her shoulder and buys the Book with money that Gideon made. _Think. Think._ Amaya reads and sips her coffee – she takes it black. A part of Amaya misses 1948 but 2017 is pretty much better for woman and for people with brown skin and that's not why she left the justice society and joined Rip's team. _Rip's team_ , Amaya thinks, though she barely knows him. _I will not be afraid._ She opens her new Bible – a Book that should be free and given to everybody – and opens to John. She reads it and smiles. All is not lost afterall.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

There is both destiny and free will. There is both freedom and captivity. Rip Hunter knows what it's like to be caged deep inside his own mind. There is a strange peace knowing that somebody else will save the world this time. There is a tear in time, a hole surrounded by a quilt knitted by an old cat lady. Rip senses that the legends his friends are near and he is frightened by the man he allowed himself to become. He can't take this much normalcy for that much longer; this façade of peace. He comes close to surrendering and forgetting himself again, and then he takes his blade and digs it into his skin and yanks it. This pain reminds himself who he is, and this time, he is happy the team is looking for him. He misses Gideon, even though she isn't real. He misses time travel, and he wishes he could ask Gideon where Sara and Mick and Ray and Jaxon and Martin and Steel and Amaya are. He wishes he could go back to the day he flew the ship into the sun.

Crash. Crash. Crash. That's all Rip can hear. Tomorrow he has to go into work, but today he gets into the jumpship and goes to the wild west to visit his adoptive mother. He wears his dark tan long coat to hide his arms and once he's there he is happy to see her and the children. He thinks about Miranda and Jonas and he grounds himself in reality.

He puts on a hat his mom gave him and jumps onto a horse and gallops to town. He smiles. It's 1907 and Rip loves it here. He hides, as time travelers must, as ring bearers must. He started traveling through time so he could destroy evil, and knowing that there is still evil out there is a burden Rip wears now stained on his arms. It hasn't always been like this. For once, there is no time and there is just space and things to think about and when he starts to think he starts to hate himself.

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They find him at the bar. They guessed he'd be there, drowning in his own sorrow, reveling in his angst. Sara Lance walks up to Rip and puts her hand on his shoulder. Rip is caught off guard and turns around to see Sara and Jaxon.

"What are you guys doing here?" Rip asked, even though he knew the answer.

"Looking for you," Sara said softly, a tear betraying her falling down her face.

"I don't want to come back," Rip said and took a sip of his drink. He closes his eyes and wishes that they would go away. But that wasn't going to happen.

"You need us, Rip," Jax says. Rip shrugs his shoulders.

"I do?" Rip asks, though there is something tugging on his heart. He does need someone, something more than just alcohol and being a history professor and cutting himself. He needs something besides reveling in how much he is hurting. He is even attracted to his pain and doesn't want to let go of it. "I deserve to suffer. I hurt all of you," Rip says. "Just leave me alone."

Sara pulls out a chair and sits down next to him. She orders a lime cooler and takes a sip. "I forgive you. It wasn't you anyways," Sara Lance says. Rip wants to believe these caring words, these loving promises.

"But I remember it. I remember stabbing you and choking you," Rip says. "I remember attacking you guys. I may have been brainwashed, but it was my hands. Your blood on my hands."

"It was mind control," Jaxon says nonchalantly. Rip shrugs his shoulders and starts to shake. He sits there staring at his drink and dares to turn to look at Sara, thinking she won't notice. But she sees Rip looking at her, loving her, missing her.

He takes a sip and Sara follows. She takes a sip and savors the lime flavor in her mouth. "You're a good person, Rip. You don't deserve to suffer," Sara says softly.

"But I want to," Rip says, taking another sip. "Coffee," he calls out to the bartender. A few minutes later a mug filled with coffee is next to his alcoholic drink. He looks into the cup and sees how black it is. He sees his own soul: as dark as this coffee next to him, a man capable of violence and pain and so much hurting hurting killing self harm why not just end it? But then his newest cut stings and Rip realizes that he wants to live and he wants to travel through time and maybe he wants to be a hero.

Sara guesses Rip's thoughts. "Your coffee may be black. Dark, mysterious. But it smells pretty good," Sara Lance says.

"How did you know what I was thinking?" Rip asks.

Sara shrugs. "Intuition. Not telepathy."

After all of Sara's training, all of her missions as an assassin and now all of her missions as a pseudo-super-hero, she's learned that things like telepathy and telekinesis are possible. Sara takes a sip of her drink and smiles sadly. She puts her hand on Rip's shoulder and rubs his taut muscles.

Rip sips his coffee and wonders why all of this had to happen to him. Why they chose to brainwash him, instead of someone else. Why why why and who can restore him to the man he was before, still a weary traveler but a true one who didn't give up easily. A man with purpose, and the way he was living wasn't really enough. His life was empty and he was pale in the face of the man he used to be.

So they talk. Rip talks about his life as a history professor and habitual time travel with the jumpship and occasional use of cannabis, something he learned back when he was forced to be Phil. Sometimes, herb took away all of his pain and he thought about talking to God. He thought about asking God why he was planted here and he desperately wanted to go home not even to the waverider but his home before that, in 3017 with Miranda and Jonas. But Miranda and Jonas don't live in 3017 anymore and he knew that going there – going home to the man he was before he was a time master – would reap havoc on his mind.

But that place was who he was before he found himself. He choked on his tears and drank some of his alcohol and some of his coffee and talked with Sara.

"Come back to us," Sara said.

The waverider and Gideon and his crew was plan B. His home in 3017 didn't feel like home anymore. But Rip had papers to grade and weed to smoke with his new friends. Even with that, he found this life empty. After all, Rip wasn't meant to be a psychonaut. He was meant to be a time traveler. He was meant to protect people so they didn't have to have the burden Rip carries with him: the burden of losing your family and everyone and everything you hold near you be destroyed shattered ripped out of your hands.

So he agreed, remembering he had a picture of Miranda and a razor blade in his wallet and that he knew someone could take his place as a history professor. Together the team walked back to the waverider. "You first, Captain," Sara said, knowing that Rip will always be the waverider's true captain. The jumpship restored to the ship, the team set out to patrol time and save lives.

Just as Rip was buckling in Sara noticed a splotch of something red on Rip's tan coat.

"What's that?" Sara asked, pointing to the spot.

Rip turned away, his eyes forlorn; searching for the right words to say.

"Did someone hurt you?" the warrior Sara asked. Rip closes his eyes and wishes that someone would punch him. Tell him his newfound habit of cutting himself isn't real, that he had a long nightmare and he never left, never hurt Sara, never hurt anyone. Never destroyed the occulus.

Rip started to nod and then shook his head. There was something in Sara's eyes, or in her hair, or maybe the way her soul smiled sadly, that made Rip want to be honest.

"Me," Rip said softly. "A habit I picked up in 2017, I reckon."

The two captains looked each other in the eyes. Rip was the one to break the stare and turn to the left. Sara guessed what Rip meant.

"Take that coat off," Sara said. Her heart was banging and her head was screaming. She didn't want to she didn't know she didn't ever love except for her sister she didn't know what to do.

"Don't tell the others," Rip says, his voice shaking, his body trembling. "Teach me how to fight." He knew that some light sparring would take his mind off things. He took off his coat and rolled up his dark brown sleeves and showed Sara his cuts (some deep, some cat scratches) and scars. To them it had been a month; to Rip it had been at least a year. A year of hating himself and teaching and hurting himself and trying to somehow be gentle but this, this, it wasn't okay. People knowing. Staring at him with pity….Rip didn't want that.

"Okay. But we have to talk about this afterwards," Sara said slowly, hesitantly.

They go to the sparring room and Sara teaches Rip a few kung fu forms. She teaches him how to block and all the different kicks.

"Hurry up into the sparring," Rip said, wanting to bleed, wanting to suffer, wanting to let Sara win because Rip is older, immortal, and Sara is too but her training isn't enough. She suffered a lot at the league of shadows and it shaped her into the warrior woman that she is today.

So they spar. Their sparring is like a graceful deadly dance. Rip blocks a punch to his temple and his arm burns. He kicks and punches and Sara does the same thing. They stop and Sara tells him that he must have had some training to already be this good and he admits that the time masters forced everyone to take kung fu, and that sparring and training always distracted him; somehow it made it okay that his family was, is, gone.

They sit down and drink coffee alone and Rip smiles for the first time in a while. Sara isn't his wife…was his wife his soulmate?...but Rip knows he loves her and as much as he wants to tear out his heart and cut cut cut for this….as much as all of that being true….he is starting to love Sara.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Sara asks.

Rip shakes his head. "Not really."

"Let me see," Sara asks, and Rip shows Sara his arm. She touches his scars gently and smiles like a ghost, a sad smile.

Rip stands there shaking, a grassy mountain about to crumble while a hurricane of waves and torrents of rain pours down, destroying the mountain. And what is left behind is red muddy dust and pain. Most of it isn't physical. Most of it is him hurting Sara him killing him abandoning his ship him forgetting himself him losing his purpose him losing his family slowly forgetting what they look like.

"I'm sorry," Rip whispers.

"You don't have to apologize," Sara says softly. "You don't even have to tell me why. I know what it's like to hurt and fall apart. I know what it's like to hurt people and lose people. I know."

Rip rolls up his sleeve and his feelings are painted on his shirt. He puts on a new coat and closes his eyes and screams inside. He remembers Sara saying he should stop you don't have to but when you're ready, I'll be there. He opens his compass and looks at the picture of Miranda and Jonas. He watches Gideon's video of them saying "We love you," and, "And miss you." And he misses them too, as if he would never see them again. _You will_ , a voice whispers. "Am I losing my mind too?" Rip wonders out-loud, and then he shakes his head and tries to find some sort of purpose left over now that his mortal enemy is dead in hell.

Sara has problems too. Rip can see through her. And he decides that he will be there for her, knowing she will be there for him. Together, they would survive. Somehow. And he goes to the bathroom and takes his blade out of his jean pocket and gently cuts himself, a medium-deep cut. Not a cat-scratch, not a wide deep gaping wound. Just enough to see fat but not that wide and not down to the muscle. Not too much. The blood bubbles up and Rip holds a tissue to the cut and hums silently to himself. The tissue is filled with blood and Rip puts on some Neosporin and a bandaid. The habit of hurting himself and then taking care of himself reminds him that he has a heart that he is real and not a robotic monster.

He hides the fact that he is a faerie-elf. He hides his self-harm, and no one but Sara sees through his efforts to hide and lie. And on this time ship, once again, he would find purpose. Somehow, someone, someday. Because today this Rip knows: you don't have anywhere to go, nothing to do, and no one to be. And he finds solace in this, and decide he's glad that at least, he's alive.

They don't go to the dinosaur age again. They travel to 4,000 as they planned to, just to see what the future looks like with free will and no fate. God directing things, not a band of power-hungry men. Old, weary men, and old, cold-hearted men. What they find is something they never could have hoped could exist. And in this era, vigilantism is not a crime.

There is war and there is peace. The legends climb out of their ship and look at this possibility of the future: there are less tall buildings and more trees and grassy fields. People are walking around in the streets singing and shouting. They are shouting, "We stand with you, Occupy Oakland." The 99% movement came back loud and strong. The Revolution is here, and it is a revolution of consciousness. You can protect history, but you can only hope for a peaceful, beautiful future.

Do something about it. Rip sneaks back to the ship thinking he doesn't deserve this beautiful future where everyone has goodness, and everyone wants to give. He closes his eyes and peals his secret razor blade from his wallet. He rolls his sleeves up and looks at his damaged arm. _This_ , he mutters. _I did this._ Rip's body is shaking and he finds it hard to hold onto the shiny deceptively beautiful blade. He gently feels one of its sharp edges and then touches his arm with it. _I deserve this. This much. This much relief, and this much punishment. If not death, this._ He digs it into his flesh and yanks. Dig, and yank. Dig, and yank. Then take care of yourself. Dig and yank. Then find your team.

Because even in 4,000, superheroes are needed. There is still petty theft and there are still knives. Rip knows. He loves going to the future. But they are all needed in the past. If things in the past aren't fixed, this future that Rip is seeing will be yanked away: just the way he let some of his skin be yanked away. _Goodbye, perfect peace. Goodbye, God's Love. Goodbye, eternity._ He finds Sara and she looks in his eyes and he is almost sure she knows what he did. She doesn't say anything. All she does is look in his eyes and smile wistfully, sadly, hopefully.

The civil war. When the south thought God wanted white, blue eyed men to have slaves, and African americans were treated like dirt. George Washington was almost killed because of an aberration during the revolutionary war. Rip tells the team that the waverider noticed another aberration during the civil war: Texas choosing to leave and become part of Mexico. _Duty. This I understand, maybe too much._

There is shouting and screaming and stands giving out free food. Mostly vegetarian food, quinoa, tofu. There is no fighting. There is no money. There are no jails. The monasteries are Christian, and all ages, races, and sexes are allowed to be monks. All beings are accepted. Rip smiles sadly, just like Sara. If only this were real. It could be. It's a possible future. A future we have to fight for

"We have to go," Rip says. "Civil war. We have to protect America." His voice is weary, hopeful, alive, and wistful. When he turns to the side he is like a waif. He almost disappears, and for a second he wonders what it would be like to just stop being, and decides that's impossible. It's impossible to just stop. Life will go on. People will move and leave. Things in the shadows will shift and change and Rip will wander. Wanderlust. That word. _Not all who wander are lost. Some harm is help; some help is harm. Sometimes cutting yourself is wise. If you deserve it, or if you feel like you do, or if you want to make yourself a better person, or if you want to prepare yourself for assault. IF you want your emotional anguish to be ripped away. If you want to feel more alive than you ever did before. If you want to know you can love._

Before they strap in, Sara grabs Rip's arm, not gently enough. His cuts – some, wounds – sting and he almost cries. "I'm sorry," Sara whispers, still holding Rip's arm. "Me too," Rip says, his voice wavering; quivering.

"Let me see," she says, and Rip relents and shows Sara Lance his arm. She touches each cut and scar with lovingkindness. "Why?" she asks. And Rip shakes his head. _Don't you know?_ Rip thinks. Wants to say. _I tried to kill you. I became a different person. Sure, it was mind-control, but that monster lives inside of me, just waiting to be ripped out. Sara understands, she has a monster too. The fem-fetal assassin inside her, not 100 & dead. We are warriors, we fight, and we try not to kill but sometimes we do, in self-defense. That is when we let our monsters out._

"So many reasons," Rip whispers. Sara nods her head. She wants to protect him, shelter him, but Rip is older and wiser. Wearier, yes. Not safe from himself, sure. But this self-harm thing is something he wants to explore for a while, as if it was some artifact stolen from history. _This,_ Rip whispers, mostly in his head. _This love for you. I'm betraying Miranda. 'We love you. And miss you,'_ Rip hears in his mind. _They are real. Alive somewhere. Where?_

Sara lets go and hugs Rip a little too tightly. Her grip is saying _I won't let you go. You are safe._ They all then buckle in and the ship jumps to the civil war. They gear up in army outfits and protects the Texas that is very much today a part of the United States. They fight and secretly free slaves. Slavery will be illegal. And then it will be alive again: body trafficking, selling young woman to become sex slaves. They should fix that, they really should, Rip thinks, but as good as that would be, it would be an aberration. _Not really,_ his conscience whispers. _Not really. It would be correcting an aberration not caused by time travel._

They fight, and fix things. And then they leave, back to the vanishing point where the occulus used to be. Rip momentarily wonders what happened to the other time masters, his used-to-be-friends. And he knows that he needs to find them.

Too be continued….


	4. Chapter 4

**4.**

 _I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here._ Intrusive thoughts. _I'll just end up hurting them again. All over again. Sara Lance, captain of the waverider. It was his ship. His ship. There is so much to fix. So much pain, and it isn't even real._ Rip Hunter sneaks into the ship's bathroom and pulls his blade out of his pocket. _I shouldn't be doing this. I should just leave again, start something new. Something better._

But something kept drawing Rip back to this ship, to guiding time, to having a purpose, and if he was going to resist ending it, he was going to cut himself. Or burn himself. Or something. He closed his eyes and visualized the shiny silver blade. _It's beautiful. Like a shimmering gemstone. But beauty is deceptive, some beauty anyways._ Rip cuts his arm and then hugs himself, rocking back and forth. He sits down on the toilet and he doesn't even care that he is getting blood everywhere. _Everyone will know. Everyone will know._

He closes his eyes and hums softly. Someone is knocking on the door. Ray. Rip can sense peoples' energy, and he knows who's coming when they're coming. They all know he's hurting, but only Sara knows that some of the pain is physical. That he mutilates his own flesh. _That isn't the best way to put it. Not all harm is help, not all help is harm. I don't want to go to a hospital. I don't need to. I just need friends._

"Hurry up man," Ray says, and Rip fuddles with toilet paper and puts a bandaid on his cut – wound – and cleans up his mess. Not all of it. Most of the mess is shaking deep inside, pain he's carried for decades spilling out now of all times.

Rip flushes the toilet and puts his shirt and jacket back on. He feels awake and alive and old cuts that now became scars are itching itching itching. The ones that are still open are stinging. For a second he looks into Sara's eyes, as she looks into his. Somehow, she knows.

"I've done it before, you know," Sara says softly, almost telepathically.

 _Can I read your mind?_

"With one of my katanas," Sara continued. "After I found out about Laurel's death. And then I did kung fu. Instead, you know. I sweat out all my sadness. All my anger and all my vengeance-seeking thoughts."

 _If you can._

"I started when I found out what I did. What I knew I did," Rip says. They are talking softly, almost telepathically.

 _Do you pray?_

Rip shrugs his shoulder. He hears. _When I can. Do you?_

 _Sometimes. Sometimes I think I'm too lost._

 _You're not,_ Rip thinks.

 _Neither are you._ She wants to hug him and never let go, and then she remembers Miranda. She wants to say, I love you, and she wonders if Rip hears that thought.

The shift is rocketing full blast from the vanishing point back to Star City, 2017. The team of outcasts and misfits decide to anchor themselves there and not spend all their time on the waverider. _We have forever, Rip._

 _Then why do I hurt so much?_

Why? Why did they let him back on the ship? Why didn't they leave him to die? Leave him to his pain, to alcohol and razor blades and…and….well, there was nothing there for him and all his job did was remind him of how lost and purposeless he feels now that his mission to save the world from Vandal Savage is over. There are new enemies, all the time. But when Rip became a time master, he didn't sign up to be a super-hero.

Rip remembers being a kid adopted by a time master's mother. She fostered many children, and Rip remembers being feisty and unruly and at the same time happy and silly. Even then, there was this gaping hole in him, seven years old and already he was aching deep in his heart. Who was his real mom? Why was he taken away? What would his destiny be?

 _Destiny, Sara._ Rip thinks. The team bunks in Rip's apartment and Rip goes back to his job as a professor and lies and says he had a nasty flu and yes now he's better and ready to teach. Ready to nurture young college-age minds. The team decided that time did not need a policeman or a guide. But as much as Rip wanted to ignore it, when amateurs are traveling through time because of some sort of nostalgia – a nostalgia that digs deep in Rip's bones – the team needs to do something to make sure the future will remain the way it's supposed to be.

 _But what about God? Why can't he do it?_ Sara asks telepathically, daring to believe that maybe Jesus is Alive and there are more things than martial arts and time travel to give you purpose. _There is more._ Sara feels like someone is saying that. _I am more_. Bruce Wayne. She remembers training with him and fighting with him and she has visions of a man dressed up in a bat suit. A man in a blue and red supersuit, a woman in the same outfit. She is half-chinese and madly in love. Lana Lang and Clark Kent. Super-heroes. Batman.

 _There is more, Rip. There's the person God made you to be._

 _Now you believe in God, Sara?_

 _Maybe. But I do believe in superheroes. I believe we can all do a little to save the world._

 _There's an itch in me now, Sara. An itch to take a blade to my own flesh. An itch to drink and then when I smoke ganja it all floats away and I can lay down and talk to the constellations. There's an itch to find God. Ganja opens that up…another portal, Sara. A portal I didn't, not in all my training, I didn't know it was there._

 _What do you teach?_

 _Medieval history. They want me to teach historic literature too. I don't know, Sara. I just want to lie down in the ship and curl up in a ball. Let Gideon fix me. Am I fixable?_

 _You don't need to be fixed. Just live, Rip. Keep going._

They follow a report on a glitch in time. The Occupy movement, a peaceful revolution. It didn't work, but it made people think. Before that, the 60s, the hippie movement: drugs and bandanas and rainbow gatherings. Earlier on World War 2, women working for the first time.

 _Get up. Do what you can, with the knowledge that you have. Time-twisters hanging out in 1966, smoking weed saying, we just want to remember. We come here in peace, not to change things but to be a part of a movement that is beyond us. At first, we were just celebrating anniversaries. Then it became real. We were going to the past to relive lost moments. Get up. Do what you can. So I sit next to them, as they take a hit of their stained-glass bowl. The girl passes the bowl to him. He takes a hit and passes it to Sara. She closes her mind for a second. What will this do? They share a mind-connection now. Get up. Do what you can. Tell them to get up and go back to their time era, lest they forget who they are and become like me. Lest they become something more, something they aren't ready to be._

This was an easy assignment. Fun, maybe, peaceful, too. The team looks for jobs in 2017. They hide the ship in Rip's garage and use it whenever they need to. Some kind of nostalgia in their bones, wanderlust in their hearts now. The missions are fun sometimes, invigorating often. _This is what we do._

 _But it's not enough. The pain is leaking out and Ray knows I can tell that he knows and I do it again and again and again. Sara and I read minds and share something I didn't have with Miranda and even though she's gone I feel guilty, as if I were cheating on her. Even though there is no sex, there are emotional ties and telepathy. This is the only thing that can save me. Maybe, there's hope. Maybe I can stop being so pliable to evil villains who want to control me, use me as an instrument of terror tactics. Maybe I can be more._

 _I sing in the shower and wash my cuts – wounds, cuts, cat-scratches – wondering what it would be like to have a cat. I smile, for the first time in a long time. I wonder if Sara senses that I'm naked, reading my mind. And maybe it doesn't matter. Or maybe it does. I'm not ready for someone else, Sara._

Sara doesn't reply this time. The warrior assassin Rip found is changing, modest, compassionate, more of an angel than a demon. Rip decides that he can't take it. He can tell that soon he will explode but he's not ready to stop hurting himself.

 _I'm not human. I don't know who I am. Who to be, where to go. I don't know, Sara._

Rip dries off and gets dressed, enjoying the sting all over his arms. He thinks of his scars as a map of the things he's been through. He mutters under his breath and gets dressed only to go into the waverider with Sara and drink limecoolers together. Drink away his pain, cut away his pain, drowning in so many years of sorrow.

 _Not all who wander are lost. There's a method to the madness._

0000000000000000

The team refused to abandon Rip. Every day Rip thought of taking the jumpship and going somewhere else, somewhere far away from Sara and Ray, and everyone who knows his newfound secret. He wants to get far away from the people he tricked into becoming heroes to get revenge for his wife and son's death. Together, the team became more than that, and sometimes thinking about that gave Rip a sense of purpose. He sat there in the jumpship with his computer grading essays. _This isn't life. Sara, do you hear me?_

She doesn't hear, or she doesn't respond. Rip scratches an itching scab and reads one of the essays. He closes his eyes and fights off a headache. He asks Gideon for music and music comes on and Rip finishes grading the papers.

 _I don't want to be here. I want to be far from here. I want to travel, learn who I am all over again. I don't know myself. Strange, eh? Sara?_

Again, no answer. Sara is inside doing one of her katas while Mick and Ray talk about becoming real super-heroes. They were called on a mission, and whether or not Rip wants to, they want to go back to that mission. Something is keeping them here, drawing them here. Because the present, and the future, also need to be saved.

Both Rip and Sara are sweating, each for different reasons. "There you are," Rip says to Sara, looking away from her eyes. He is scared, shaking in a ball in fetal position. Metaphorically. He is shaking screaming not metaphorically. Why why why? He collapses to the ground and cold tears fall down his face. He feels embarrassed and spiritually scarred. _Let's make those spiritual scars real all over again._ He is breaking down and Sara tries to touch his shoulder and Rip flinches, scared that someone will touch him, use him the way Thawne did, make him fight, make him bleed.

 _No. no. I will not be this person. This person that can't keep himself together. But today I am. I am lying here scared to death, afraid of only myself._

Rip slowly sits up and rubs his arm. Sara sits next to him and again touches his shoulder as if saying, _I'm here, when you're ready to talk. I'm here, Rip._ And she brushes away Rip's tears and just sits with him, letting him know she understands. She understands being afraid of herself, hating herself for the things she's done and happy that she made It out on the other end safe and alive.

"I don't know what to do anymore," Rip whispers.

Sara doesn't say anything. Rip continues.

"It hurts so much. Here," Rip says, touching his chest with his hand. His heart is beating slower than usual and he is still shaking. "And my arms and do I even have a soul?"

"If anyone does, you do," Sara says. They sit there and the rest of the team goes back to what they were doing. Bored, not really knowing who they are anymore either. Rip is embarrassed that all of the team saw him break down. Sara hugs him and helps him stand up.

"Lets go to the 60s. You and me, okay?" Sara asks.

"!960 or 2060?" Rip asks, laughing a little, realizing he feels a little better. Friendship helps.

"Both," Sara says, smiling weakly. She hides her pain, and like Rip how he used to be, her sadness and hatred for herself is not written on her sleeves. And unlike Rip – Rip not brainwashed, at least – the blood was not on her arm but on other peoples' chests. And today she is not happy about that.

They take the jumpship to 1960, just when the hippie movement started and find some weed growing. Rip pulls a glass bowl out of his cloak poicket and they smoke weed together. They talk honestly, about their problems and about the things that bring them joy and about God. Then they lay down and gaze at the stars. 1960 is peaceful. Men with long hair and bandanas are walking around the streets high and tripping.

"What do you think is in 2060?" Sara asks, trying to get Rip to smile. Right now he is so bright bright brightly aware of how sad he is, sad and lonely. He wants to laugh.

"Something beautiful," Rip finally says. "Something that hurts. Something…great."

They walk around 1960 Austin Texas and hop in the jumpship and travel to 1965 California, still bhigh.

"Have you ever dropped acid?" Rip asked, remembering his stint as a film student, wandering around high and tripping and aching to know who he was, guessing he forgot something important. Something that drugs – herbs – would bring back to him. Memory, purpose, freedom. Something like that. And now that he knows, he is so aware of the red bleeding heart pounding in his chest and the pain he carries remembering his family was murdered and he killed his enemy realizing that revenge isn't justice and now Rip wants that. Justice, forgiveness, freedom from the pain that Savage caused him. And how do you seek justice? Revenge is so much easier.

 _You try to make the world right,_ Sara says telepathically. Rip forces himself to smile. A sad smile, but a smile.

 _How?_

 _You show the world what's right._

 _I got it right when I forgot. I became a film student._ That felt right. Showing the world what he felt to be right, an allegory with poetic thins like metaphors and a story to warn people so they don't make the mistakes he made. And to reveal his secrets, hidden in plain sight.

 _Thinking about doing it again?_ Sara asks as they land in 2060.

 _Making films, maybe. Killing? No._

There are no aliens or robots in 2060. It's not that different from 2017. War in the middle east, some in Europe and Asia. Fake sense of peace in America. The government has secrents. Level 0ne, level 7. You don't have clearance. Trust the system. Nut neither Sara nor Rip do. Trust the system, that is.

 _Was that a date?_

 _No._

They go back to 2017 and they both try to smile. It was an adventure. A heavy weight was lifted from both of their hearts. _God, take this mountain weight, these ocean tears._

To be continued…


	5. Chapter 5

**Ch.5**

 _Do I have a soul? I think my soul is hurting. I think it is aching like the way I ask Gideon not to heal me. I think my heart is racing and my chest is aching and my arms burn and I just have to accept that this is the way I am for now. My life has carved this being into me and now I awake to this new being living in me. This ache for vengeance is gone leaving me with a gaping hole the shape of my heart. I sip my coffee and think about protecting history and teaching history. We go back to fix things and we go to the future to see if we're right. Eternity, though, it etched in my spine in deep black ink. It is not a tattoo. It is calligraphy and I am bleeding._

 _I am bleeding and I want to look at these scars that serve as a map of everywhere that I've been, with and without Miranda and with and without Gideon and with and without Sara, Mick, Ray, Martin, Amaya, Kendra, and Jaxon. A new future is etched deep in my blood and I think about ancient history where bloodletting was seen as medicine and I think yes, they were right, bloodletting is medicine. It is medicine for the soul, to make a sad weary soul happy._

 _I go on like a robot, like Gideon. I teach everything I've ever learned and I go home and I carve lines into my abdomen and legs and arms. I bleed and I am soaring above the clouds. I awake to reality. I am from the 22_ _nd_ _century living in the 21_ _st_ _century. Soon, I will forget myself and become a different person. (That already happened when I first sat on the waverider. My life changed forever. I already am a different person, so it doesn't matter. Wherever you go, there you are.)_

 _I am awake to everything and asleep to everything. All I know is I am different now. Saving time isn't my purpose anymore. Free will is a gift, but so is Destiny. I close my eyes and breathe in – 1,2,3,4,5 – hold it – breathe out – 1,2,3,4,5. I drink coffee and tea and talk with Sara. I am starting to forget Miranda and it makes me sad. I can't hold onto the image of her anymore. So I take a razor blade and cut the pain away. New pain arrives and I know how to deal with physical pain…how to deal with cuts._

 _You let it bleed, because your heart is bleeding too. Then you dab it with tissues or toilet paper and make the bleeding stop. You put hydrogen peroxide on a cotton ball and dab the cut with it. Then you let it dry and you put Neosporin on it. You grab the box of advanced healing bandaids and put one on. You smile. You listen to the pain and then you write. Write, 1,2,3,4 hours, read what you wrote, 1, 2, 3,4 hours. If you break a bone, you wrap it with an ace bandage and rest the broken limb. You rest._

 _There are walls surrounding me that not even Gideon can break through. There is red dust bricks and silver crystals and glass so shiny but also ugly. And when I look at Sara, some of the bricks turn to red silvery dust. It's as if I punched a brick wall and it didn't hurt at all: red dust in my palms, all my patterns and self-destructive habits. All the pain built up since a hard childhood in foster homes until a time master selected me._

 _And it's all falling down. Every kid that hit me, every time master that said no, don't take down a raving madman who wants to rule the world. But when he stopped working alone – that is when things started to shift like sinking sand – for good, mostly, and then after a sacrificial act to save them all, I forgot all of it. All of my pain, and I was happy – eccentric, different, happy to be different – and then false memories were implanted in him. It felt real. I remember those memories just as much as the old ones stitched through time in my bones, the blood that runs through my system that makes me become me again. Remembering. If I know who I am, I am not malleable. I will not become a monster again. I will not let myself._

Rip Hunter wakes up from a harsh, ice cold biting nightmare. He is sweating and his covered are twisted around his body. He feels like screaming and kicking his legs. _That won't solve anything, Rip,_ someone says. God, Sara, or his subconscious.

 _What will? What will make what I saw become okay again?_

 _It's like you're in a lake. You have to swim to the shore,_ the voice says. _Swim to the shore. Even if it's an ocean and the waves are mean and violent. The sea monsters will not eat you. You will not drown._

 _What if what I find is an island? What if I am an island? Islands don't cry. I do,_ Rip responds. _Sara?_

But Sara is sleeping. Rip looks to the clock and it says 2:35 a.m. More sleep. More nightmares. Rip gets up and puts his bathrobe on and slowly walks downstairs, not wanting to wake his team – eh, friends – up. He drinks some orange juice and slips outside to walk around. He makes a weak, half-hearted attempt to patrol his neighborhood. Maybe someone will kill him. He has martial arts, and some super-strength and superspeed, but sometimes he doesn't want to survive. Scratch that. Sometimes, he thinks he doesn't deserve to survive.

The frigid air wakes up Rip's bones and he thinks about all of his terrible memories. He forces himself to think about the good ones too. _You deserve to live. You deserve to thrive. Fly, Rip. You deserve to fly._ That makes Rip happy for a moment, and he jokes, _the bloodletting must be working._ He thinks about cutting himself, but he jumps up and tries to fly instead. Blast off. Go somewhere not here. Be more and more and more alive.

After a while of wandering around – no one was out for Rip to fight – Rip let himself back into the house and ate some bread and quietly climbed upstairs and got back into bed.

 _I will be okay. I will swim to the shore. The things I did, can God forgive me? I can't even forgive myself. I feel like a monster, and I dream of killing all over again. I dream of hanging myself, strapping a noose on my neck and jumping off the chair not able to scream. It feels so real. I fall to the ground – thud, thud – my neck aches, there is blood everywhere. I am stabbing Sara. I find myself and I am choking him – eh, me. You can't snuff me out, the younger me says. You can not kill me. I am you, you are me. You can't end yourself. The scene shifts and I am with my 7-year-old self in a grassy field in New Zealand._

 _We are walking. It is strange, but this innocent kid that is me is my wise, friendly mentor. "You're going to make it, Rip," he says. "Don't snuff yourself out." There are tall stocks of grass and tall auburn wheat plants and some daises._ _ **This is a dream, the one rule of time travel is don't go back to where you were. Takes all the interesting out of it. Things happen.**_

 _The scene shifts again. Younger me is gone. I am climbing a snowy mountain and my intuition is fly away, there's going to be an avalanche. But how?_ _ **It's a dream, you can do whatever you want in a dream.**_ _So I jump off the mountain. I can fly, I tell myself. This is a dream and I am not afraid. I think about Sara and I almost summon her. Sara, where are you?_

 _She was in my mind once. It wasn't safe for her in here. I am falling. Falling free-fall wind shaking my ear-drums and I pray if this is real please God Whoever-You-Are please please save me. I am in Sara's arms back in the grassy field. "Thought you could just end it?" Sara asks._

" _No," I say, my voice wavering. "There was going to be an avalanche. I didn't want to be buried in snow."_

" _Well, you're fine," Sara says._

" _This is a dream," I say, and I am lying on the field – it is a bed supporting my back – and Sara is gone. Sara Lance, assassin-turned-super-hero. The tall grass is both itchy, painful, and supportive. I gaze at the pink and purple sky and I pinch my neck and I'm screaming,_ _ **Wake me up, wake me up, wake me up!**_

 _The scene shifts and I almost loose hold on my lucid dream. I am in a weird college dormitory wandering around the hallways. Other people are walking around like zombies, some carrying books, notebooks and binders. I am surprised and afraid._ _ **Don't be afraid, child. Or ashamed.**_ _I want to say, I'm not a child, but if God is real, and I hope He is, I have a Reverent Respect for Him, because I enjoy the things He made, sometimes. He said honor your parents, but He didn't give me any. Not any biological parents that were there, at least. When did they die? When he was two or three. It wasn't fair. It was painful knowing that you could be kicked out because they are the hired hand, not the good shepherd. Not Abba Father, a real parent who genuinely cares about you. Abba, Father._

 _And then I wake up. I am sweaty, and the blankets are twisted again, and I lay there wondering. Abba, Father. I want to say thank you. I want to, but I can't bring myself to pray. Not now, not like this. I think about my memories and decide I CAN say thank you for Gideon, for my team and that they saved me even when I was trying to destroy – not only kill, destroy – them_ _ **.**_ _And I don't feel worthy of Salvation._ _ **No one is, though. That's why it's called Grace. Unmerited favor.**_

The next day is here. It is 6 a.m. he has to wake up. He would rather be a student than a professor. He thought about teaching his students about time travel, knowing they would laugh. The other teachers wonder what makes Rip such a history expert. He's been there and watched history unfold. Sometimes, he's changed it. He gave Martin Stein a daughter by recruiting him, leading him to meet his younger self. He wonders if that was wrong, to allow _that_ to happen.

He remembers Sara telling him that he gave her a purpose. Today, after a lot of shaky dreams, Rip wonders what his true purpose really is. Sometimes he decides it doesn't matter, just keep walking, swim to the shore. Fly.

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The team does not go back to their normal, everyday lives. Sara Lance grieves the loss of her sister Laurel, and Martin Stein has conversations with his new daughter Lilly. He explained everything to her and she cried because the experiences she had with her father was lost in him. Where was the person who raised her, got her into MIT? Does time travel make one person two or three or four, and where was the Martin that was her dad? Perhaps the two men merged back to the one person he always had been. It's never too late to be a daughter or a mother or a father. Never.

.

Rip Hunter sits in the bathroom thinking about Miranda and Jonas. Then his mind wanders towards Sara, and his mind betrays him. _I want to memorize her body. I want to memorize her soul and look through the glass jar in front of her face and think, no one will kill her. Miranda, she wasn't a trained warrior the way Sara Lance is, and the hero in her – the villain in her – the monster and the angel – wakes up my mind. I want to see inside the glass door. Shatter it, Sara. Let the monster out, but listen to the angel first. You are the only one I'd ever let become the captain of my ship. MY ship, I realize and I wake up from angst and realize yes, I am still here – I pause to cut myself – yes, I am still here on this planet, so I have a purpose. I am stuck a thousand years in the past drawn to a group of wannabe heroes and outcasts and misfits. I stuck out of time, and I became a different being: timeless, any time will do._

 _I know where to go, I know who to be. I don't know if Sara feels this burning aching fire that I feel. If she sees my pain, if she knows I can see hers. Then I leave the bathroom and put my leather jacket on – brown swade – and I get in the car and go to the university I teach at. I sit in the teacher's lounge sipping coffee wondering what this job means to me. The coffee is black, dark, bitter. I am safe here. I found a niche in this silly little town and sometimes teaching world war two – maybe the students can tell I've been there, many times – wakes up some fiery angst inside me._

 _Then there is blood. Red, crimson aching pulsing blood pouring out a timeglass. There is no time. There are many timestreams. Many versions, many universes. There is so much time. Red, bloody time. Time is carving a spot out for me and I open up and close down and the brick walls shatter to soft red dust. My fist is not even bloody. I am different now. I don't want revenge or even justice. I just want peace with myself and my friends._

 _After school, I lay down on the soft purple couch and visualize Miranda and Jonas. All I see is Sara, floating in black space gray meteorites hurling towards her. There are soft holes in the space rocks and there is no peace, just oblivion; darkness. Then I am there, holding her tightly. Hypnogogic hallucinations before sleep, falling in and out of relaxation. Exhaustion is only one word for it. I try to hold onto my mind – it Is mine – but even that slips and scenes change._

 _I am back on the waverider hurdling through time. The time masters that survived are there, hunting me. They want to stab me and hit me and tie me down._ _ **This is a nightmare**_ _, I tell myself._ _ **This isn't real.**_ _I pilot the waverider back to my time, the 22_ _nd_ _century. I find it to be great to be back here, where I once had a family._ _ **Don't lose grip. Stabilize yourself. This is a dream.**_ _I walk on the streets I walked on then, and I sing the songs I sang to Jonas after he awoke from nightmares. I look at my hands and make sure I can stay in this dream a little bit longer. It's peaceful to be back. I wonder if when I awake, I could come here and have a life here._

 _Forget about the cutting and my new teammates. Squatmates. Friends. I never had that luxury before. I was a lone wolf, a lone warrior with bright angry green eyes. Everything is different now. I am at the house I lived in then except it looks different. I walk through the walls – this is a dream – and I punch my way through – everything shatters._

 _No one is there. I look at the desk and the shifting numbers on the radio clock and I smile. When I am asleep, I am safe. I can explore, I can be the carefree person I was long before I became the man I am now._

 _ **We all have the desire to go back to where we used to be. Do it over, pay more attention. Know yourself this time. It happens in our dreams. We go back to college and high-school and we don't know our schedule. We get stuck on highways and we wonder if we should be frightened or just keep walking, listening to our intuition.**_

 _ **To go back there. You could call it nostalgia.**_

 _I sit in the house and then I lose myself again. I am somewhere else and in the way back of my mind I know I'm dreaming. I am in the woods being chased by a wolf. I am the wolf, I think, I am faster than him. I am not afraid. He has bright green eyes. He is a lot like me. I talk to the wolf. "How are you?" I ask the wolf, and then the wolf isn't afraid of me. When an animal is afraid of you, it attacks you…not that I would consider wolves animals. Like phoenixes, dragons, and unicorns, wolves are mystical creatures. They are Divine Warriors. Then the wolf is gone and there is a tiger. It is running and it does not see me. It_ _ **rips**_ _a deer to shreds – it needs to eat – and God raises the dear from the dead. The deer reappears and then runs off into the abyss of my dreamscape._

 _Again, I wake up in my dream. That was weird._ _ **This is a dream. I am safe. I am the wolf, I am the tiger, I am the deer. These are all parts of me. I look at my hands and see blood all over them. I slaughtered the deer. I am a monster.**_

 _I wake up on the couch sweating, tears rolling down my eyes – or is that just sweat? My right arm is bleeding, I must have picked a scab in my sleep. I sit up and grunt. That was weird. I get up and pour some water in a glass and look at the time. It's only midnight and I have to be up early. I slept a lot and decide I don't want to go back to bed._

 _I sit at my desk and grade papers and plan what era I'm going to lecture about. I hop in the waverider alone – the way it was before my team. Well, I'm not 100 percent alone. Gideon is there, and perhaps God is too. It's a nice thought. That Someone would be there to protect him. He takes his laptop and heads to the 70s – 1970, to be exact – and walks around exploring. He rubs his face and reminds himself that this is not a dream. Be careful._

 _I watch protest marches for African American's women's rights. The energy is huge and beautiful. There is hope shining in peoples' eyes. Coffee and beer was only a penny so Rip drinks as he studies. Both coffee and beer. I take notes and then heads back to 2017. Not his era, but a home for now. Is there ever home to be found? Not when your small family was slaughtered. Not now, not yet._

 _000000000000000000000000_

Rip gets back and gets a little more sleep and then heads to work. He hangs out in the teachers' lounge. He thinks about all the young minds and he hopes he's not leading them in the wrong direction. There is gauze taped around his right arm and he holds his secrets deep inside his blood. Boiling. Brick wall. Break it. Red dust.

In the lecture hall, Rip is not afraid. He teaches based on experience and you can hear passion in his lecture. He holds onto the shreds left in him and somehow he gets through the day. He gets home and trains kung fu with Sara and plays around with Sara's staffs and swords.

A/N: I'm not sure what should come next. Any ideas of where you want this story to be going?


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